A great number of people are flying their flags at half mast
in the wake of the Aol-HuffPo merger/acquisition.

Word is that the phenomenon that Arianna Huffington and
partner Kenny Lerer created in 2005 of a web newspaper featuring progressive,
fair, and liberal journalism--a place for
legitimate investigation of issues and commentary-- has been killed, even
massacred, by this 315million-dollar deal.

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Not only do thousands of comments on HuffPo and AOL reflect
much mournful, angry despair in response to the deal. Many other news sites offer interpretation
and analysis with nary a whole-hearted positive outlook in sight. (With the
notable exceptions of Arianna, Kenny Lerer, Eric Hippeau , and Howard Fineman,
senior political editor of HuffPost, as well as a smattering of people I will
call "optimistic wait-and-seers").

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Certainly, there are legitimate fears that all progressives
have about conservative AOL sharing the power that could potentially impact
content, censorship, and freedom of speech which we all enjoyed on
HuffingtonPost. Absolutely, there are
loads of people who know more than I do about the evils of corporate America, as
well as the inner-workings of AOL. I
stand to be educated.

The forecast of doom, however, is about fear, perhaps even
educated guesses, but fear it is and not yet actual fact.

My morning email from the health blog, Natural News, opened today with these fears broadcast as fact, a daily practice in American news
reporting.

"The Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315 million
yesterday, meaning the site, which was once the darling of independent media,
is now clearly positioned as institutionalized
media".

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On the other hand, a friend of mine also forwarded me the
more even-toned NPR iPAD App:
click here

This article explains how AOL benefits from the merger, and
how HuffPost "gets access to a whole new audience".

I am a writer, media analyst, and psychotherapist. I'm interested in comedy, satire, politics, entertainment, pop culture, and business; exposing how the media powerfully spins the news we hear, and how this spin creates our feeling states and (more...)